If We Never Met (Whisper Lake #5) - Barbara Freethy Page 0,67

"Thanks," she said. "To be totally honest, though, there is something between Dante and me. There's an attraction, a chemistry."

"Really?" Gianna asked, a new light in her eyes.

"But," she added hastily, "it's not going anywhere. Dante is only in town for another two weeks. We're just going to be??riends."

"Kissing friends?" Hannah asked.

"Maybe," she conceded. "Let's not make a big thing about it. We're just going to have fun and that's it. And now that you know that, I hope you will not act weird around him when he comes on the boat with us later. I invited him. I hope that's okay."

"It's more than okay," Gianna said. "And we'll be good."

"I know you and Chloe will be good?? She gave Hannah a pointed look.

"I'll be good, too," Hannah said dryly.

"And I'm afraid I won't be there, so I'm going to expect a full report at some point," Chloe said. "I also want to say, Keira, that you should have some fun. Even when you think a relationship might last forever, it doesn't always make it." She cleared her throat. "Sorry, I took that a little too dark."

"I vote for fun, too," Gianna said. "I spent way too much time trying to figure out Mr. Right, even accepting a few engagement rings along the way because I kept thinking I just wanted to get married. But all those guys were wrong. When I saw Zach again, I knew that I'd been trying to force something that wasn't there."

"I have no words of wisdom," Hannah put in. "I just think Dante is hot and you're hot and you could be really hot together."

She grinned. "I can always trust you to keep it simple."

"Maybe he could be your plus one for the wedding," Hannah added, a sparkle in her eyes.

"Stop obsessing over my plus one," she ordered. "But I'll think about it. I don't know where things are going to go with us."

"I know," Hannah said.

She made a face at Hannah. "You don't know everything."

"I know this. Dante is walking toward us."

She whirled around in surprise, seeing Dante make his way down the right-field line. After what he'd told her the night before, she hadn't expected to see him before the boat trip. But here he was, looking incredibly sexy in faded jeans and a dark-orange T-shirt, his thick brown hair blowing in the warm breeze. Her heart flip-flopped in her chest, her mind flashing back to the beautiful memories they'd made the night before.

She moved away from her friends to greet him. "I can't believe you're here," she said. "I thought you were going to meet us at the boat."

He smiled as he gazed into her eyes. "I didn't want to waste time that I could spend with you."

Her heart sped up at his husky words. "What about the baseball?"

"I think I can handle it. As long as you're here."

"I'm here," she said.

"I want to kiss you. But??

She sucked in a quick breath. "But?" she echoed.

"There are a lot of people looking at us."

She glanced over her shoulders, seeing her friends gazing at them with unapologetic curiosity. "We could give them something to see."

He grinned. "I thought you'd want to keep our relationship private."

"Our relationship has never been private." She put her hands on his shoulders as she stole a much-needed kiss. "There. It's done."

"For now," he promised.

"For now," she agreed.

They stared at each other for a long minute, with the air sizzling between them, but a sudden cheer broke the trance they seemed to be in.

She turned toward the field as a fly ball headed straight for Hailey. She caught it and another cheer broke out. "That's Hailey," she said. As Hailey ran toward the dugout, she shouted, "Good catch, Hailey."

Hailey looked over at her with a big smile on her face as her team got ready to hit.

When she turned back to Dante, she saw a smile play around the corners of his mouth. "What?"

"Making the last out of the inning when you're on defense is always the best feeling."

"I bet. So, this isn't bringing only bad memories?"

"Surprisingly not. Her face was so full of joy. I remember that feeling."

"I'm sure you felt it a lot, considering how good you are at the game."

"Baseball is still a game of percentages. The best hitters in the league get out seventy percent of the time, and I try to raise that to a hundred percent of the time if I can."

"Hmm, I never thought of it that way. There's more failure than